The present invention relates generally to the display of products, especially retail products. More specifically, the invention relates to brackets and hook systems for the display of products on a variety of different fixtures.
The packaging for many retail products is specifically designed to permit the products to be hung from a display hook. This display arrangement provides several benefits, including providing customers with an unobstructed view of the product, decreasing the amount of space necessary to display each product, and facilitating restocking operations.
Several different wall fixtures have been developed to meet the strong demand for hook display systems. The most prevalent are pegboards, hanger bars, wire grids and slat walls. Pegboard fixtures are similar to the perforated hardboard often used in residential applications for the hanging of yard tools and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 4,560,062, xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Supporting a Display Carton,xe2x80x9d issued to Valiulis on Dec. 24, 1985, illustrates how pegboard may be used for the display of retail products.
Hanger bars are horizontally disposed thin slats of metal, often about 0.20-0.25 inch thick and about 1.00-1.25 inch tall, onto which a specially designed hook or similar device can be placed. As described and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,764, issued on Sep. 1, 1981 to Pfeifer, several hooks can be mounted to a hanger bar and then selectively moved in a lateral direction to permit the efficient display of merchandise having a variety of different configurations and sizes.
An exemplary wire grid product display system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,298, issued May 23, 1989 to Metcalf. Rows of evenly spaced heavy gauge wire extend horizontally and, at a significantly greater spacing, vertical support wires are welded to the rear of the horizontal wire array. The wire is often 7 gauge, or about 0.1875 in diameter. Hooks are mounted directly to the horizontal wires, but their horizontal movement is limited by the interfering vertical support wires.
Slat walls, sometimes also called slot walls, have horizontal slots to receive a mounting bracket. As explained and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,376, issued Dec. 10, 1996 to Thompson, in cross section the slots have a tapered xe2x80x9cTxe2x80x9d shape. One end of a bracket having a xe2x80x9cZxe2x80x9d shape is introduced into the stem and one of the branches of the xe2x80x9cT,xe2x80x9d and thereafter allowed to rotate into a fixed position.
The brackets and hooks used with each of the foregoing systems are generally incompatible with other fixture systems. For example, wire grid brackets typically cannot be used on hanger bars, wire grids, or slat walls. Accordingly, it is often necessary for merchants to stock and install different brackets and hooks for each type of display fixture. Manufacturers likewise suffer from lost economies of scale because lack of standardization necessitates the production and distribution of lesser quantities of a wider variety of hooks and brackets.
In one aspect, the present invention is directed to an improved display system that is compatible with a variety of different fixtures. In an illustrative embodiment, an integral hook and bracket system can be mounted to both wire grid and hanger bar fixture systems. After attachment of an adapter unit, the system of the illustrative embodiment can also be mounted to pegboard and slot wall fixture systems.
In another aspect, the invention relates to an improved display device that incorporates a product information display member. In another illustrative embodiment, an integral hook and bracket assembly compatible with a plurality of different fixture systems includes a horizontally extending product information placard.
The details of one or more embodiments of the invention are set forth in the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, and from the claims.